Lunchtime Philosophy
by three-golden-mockingjays
Summary: Clove never guessed that Cato would end up forgetting her and flirting with Glimmer. Marvel knew it would happen from the start. So while they sat together at lunch during training, the two forgotten Careers talked about love, friendship, scars, knife-throwing and everything in-between. Marvel/Clove FRIENDSHIP NOT ROMANCE! :)


"Why are you so happy?" Clove asked Marvel across the table.

"Sorry?"

"Why are you so happy? Your smile shits me."

Marvel's eyes crinkled as he laughed, "Sorry about that."

Clove rolled her eyes, "There you go again," she slapped her hand on the table as if to emphasise her point.

"She taught me to be positive. Is that word in your vocabulary Clove? Optimistic? _Happy?_" Marvel gestured to Glimmer as he spoke, and Clove's expression soured, "What?" Marvel asked, "Don't you like her?"

Clove stared at Glimmer and Cato flirting up a storm over by the swords station while everyone else ate lunch. Apparently they were so engrossed in each other they hadn't noticed everyone else move over to the tables to eat, "You could say that," Clove shrugged, and began to push her food around her plate. "What are they…" Clove craned her neck to see the swords station, "Oh God, ew, why? Argh! That just put me off that swords station for the rest of training, Jesus!" She put her hand over her eyes and peered through the cracks between her fingers dramatically.

Marvel looked at her closely, "Not upset Clovely?"

"Not in the slightest, and don't call me Clovely, where did you hear that nickname anyway?" Clove asked sullenly, scowling in the general direction of the two blondes now by the knives station.

"You boyfriend was calling you that yesterday at training," Marvel shrugged, looking closely at something that appeared to be a purple strawberry with a confused expression on his face, "Best not eat that, I'll probably get food poisoning."

"Did you just call him my boyfriend? Are you _serious?"_ Now Cato was showing off for Glimmer, throwing knives into targets and hitting dead centre almost every time. All of a sudden Clove exploded, "That dick, I mean, I taught him that! He sucked until I saved him! He can't do that!"

"Sure you're not… dare I say it, jealous?"

"Jealous? God, she can have Cato, I couldn't care less," Clove shifted her chair so that she had her back to them. She noticed the little girl from eleven staring at her curiously. "What you looking at brat? Do you want a knife in your throat?" she hissed, wielding her butter knife threateningly. She little girl shook her head and looked away.

Marvel snickered, "Not jealous at all. Just threatening twelve year old for looking at you…" his voice trailed off as Clove turned her death stare on his, but his smile hardly faltered.

"You don't feel the tiniest bit possessive of her, Marvel?" Clove asked; turning the question around like only someone who had lied for years could do.

Marvel shook his head, "Very good looking, very blonde, very curvy, very _bitchy,_" Marvel summed up, "There was a time in my life when I was pretty sure I was head over heels in love with her. Not any more Clove, not by a long shot."

Clove sighed in response and stabbed a piece of fruit violently, then let it drop back onto her plate. There was an almost tangible silence between the two for a long time, before Clove said in an uncharacteristically submissive voice, "I've been friends with him for fourteen years, you know?"

Marvel inhaled sharply, "That's a long time. You're seventeen, yeah?"

Clove nodded glumly, "You've done your research right. I'm eighteen in three months, if I live that long. You know, Cato will turn nineteen while we're in the arena? We checked in the rule books and he can't be disqualified, he was eighteen when he was reaped. It will be his first birthday in fourteen years we haven't held a party for him."

"I didn't research that, I'm a naughty Career. Cato was talking about you, and he mentioned it. Well that's depressing," Marvel said, "It's like, you've been his friend his whole life and after all that he's left you for her?"

"He hasn't left me," Clove said quietly, "He was never mine to begin with."

"You know, Glimmer used to be my best friend. But that was only for what, four years? Yeah, it doesn't really compare to you and Cato. This is all before Glimmer hit puberty and became beautiful, of course, but we both got along because we both had scars on our arms. We'd make up these crazy reasons we had them like, 'A bear got me,' and 'Someone tried to murder me, but I fought him off,' and 'I was trying to get a tattoo, but they made a mistake.'" Marvel laughed, "That last one was the one I used most often, and my lovely grade one friends believed me because of the shape of it." He rolled up his sleeve to reveal an unusual looking scar, standing white against his skin. On the left side, it was shaped like several flower petals, tiny little white loops against his tanned skin. On the right, the scar's long claw reached up across his collarbone. "Glimmer's is nowhere as awesome as this this one."

Clove smiled gently, which was a new look for her, "I suppose not. Why were you and Cato talking about me? That time he told you I was seventeen?"

"He talked for a full hour about you at the spears station yesterday," Marvel grinned, "I don't think he realised how much he talked, or he would have stopped. I mean, he sounded the teensiest bit obsessed. That's why I was surprised when I saw _that._" He jerked his head in the Glimmer/Cato direction.

"Oh you're joking," Clove put her face in her hands, "They're coming over."

Sure enough, Glimmer and Cato were heading over, standing so close that they were bumping into each other with almost every step they took, at the hips, shoulders, thighs and arms. Marvel cringed like it embarrassed him, which it probably did. "Hey!" Glimmer greeted in her perky, rather annoying voice, sitting down next to Marvel, "Oh sorry Cato, you're sitting next to Clove, you don't mind, do you?"

Clove's one perfect death stare in Glimmer's direction had the blonde squirming, and Marvel in an apparent 'coughing' fit, which was really just a fit of laughter. "I'm alright here," Cato said in his easy tone, "Clove and I are friends, aren't we?" Clove smiled a pained sort of smile, "We're great friends."

"What were you guys doing anyway?" Glimmer asked as she helped herself to some peas.

Marvel and Clove exchanged a glance, and it was Clove who found the words to express the meaning behind the look, "Just some casual lunchtime philosophy."

**Ok, I'm just going to get one thing straight, I am NOT a Clarvel shipper, but I am very big on Marvel/Clove friendship. I don't ship Glato either, in my mind it was definitely all for the sponsors :P. Hope you enjoyed, review maybe? -L**


End file.
